Tag Archives: Georgia

Georgia picks CBanker

MARCH 16 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia’s Central Bank picked Koba Gvenetadze, a former IMF banker, to be its chief, replacing Giorgi Kadagidze whose term finished in February. The following day, President Giorgi Margvelashvili approved Mr Gvenetadze’s 7-year term at the Bank. Georgia’s economy has been under increased pressure from the falling value of the lari and rising inflation linked to a fall in oil prices and recession in Russia.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 272, published on March 18 2016)

Sex blackmail scandal rocks Georgia

MARCH 11/14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – TBILISI — Georgian government officials and opposition MPs appear to have been the target of a blackmail plot after a series of sex tapes were posted online.

Videos of two Georgian women MPs and two men from the ruling Georgian Dream coalition, apparently having extramarital sex, were uploaded to Youtube.

The videos were taken down quickly but not before news of their existence had gone viral. Georgia’s conservative society was both outraged by the videos of the officials having sex and also at the breach of privacy.

Georgian President Giorgi Margvelashvili said the security agencies had detained five people in connection with the plot.

“All the law enforcement agencies are involved in the investigation, we need to put an end to terrorising the society with such videos once and for all,” he said.

News reports said the originators of the videos contacted their targets before uploading the videos, demanding that they resign from their posts.

For Georgians the emergence of the videos is a reminder of the old- school Soviet- style pressure techniques which they thought they had left behind.

It’s unclear if the blackmail plot is linked to a parliamentary election planned for later this year.

Privacy, surveillance, and blackmail are all hot issues with the upcoming elections next October. The current government campaigned strongly against surveillance of citizens and politicians before they came to power in 2012.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 272, published on March 18 2016)

Georgian students protest

MARCH 11 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Hundreds of students at Tbilisi State University staged a sit-in to protest at what they said was the non transparent way the university decides on its management structure. The protest attracted nationwide attention, and even forced the intervention of PM Giorgi Kvirikashvili. Some analysts said that the protest could spread.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 272, published on March 18 2016)

Editorial: British Airways and Azerbaijan

MARCH 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) -The economic downturn continues to hit Central Asia and the South Caucasus with British Airways now cancelling its London-Baku service.

But whether BA needs to quit the route altogether is questionable. Airlines keep a diversified portfolio of route because it is near impossible to second guess which routes will be profitable in a few year’s time.

The decision took many by surprise because of the strong presence of British business in Azerbaijan, most notably BP.

As oil prices fell dramatically in the past 20 months, airline companies have rallied on cheap fuel, but have also struggled to maintain links to countries negatively affected by the crisis.

In 2012, British Airways cut its route to Yerevan, the following year it cancelled regular flights to Bishkek and Tbilisi. Last October, the company quit its London-Almaty route.

The crisis, aside from hitting government budgets and people’s wallets, has contributed to cutting off further the region from the West.

ENDS

Editorial from Issue No. 272, published on March 18 2016)

Carrefour extends its presence in Georgia

MARCH 17 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The EBRD said it extended a $39.5m credit line to Majid Al Futtaim, the regional franchisee of French retailer Carrefour, to extend its presence in Georgia. Carrefour already has three stores in Georgia and said it wants to open new ones. Carrefour is also present in Armenia, where it owns one store, Tajikistan and also in Kazakhstan.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 272, published on March 18 2016)

Georgia’s city water chief quits

MARCH 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Alexander Mikeladze, director of Batumi Water, resigned from his post after he became involved in a public scandal. Mr Mikeladze is accused of having abused his position of director of the water distribution company. He allegedly cut off the water supply to a restaurant that failed to provide him the table he wanted. The accusation against Mr Mikeladze comes at a complicated time for worker-management relations in Georgia. With economic conditions worsening, Georgian PM Giorgi Kvirikashvili has been talking up the need for harmony.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 271, published on March 11 2016)

Georgian court sentences IS recruiter

MARCH 7 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Georgia sentenced a man to 14 years in prison for recruiting men to join the radical IS group in Syria and Iraq. Three other men were imprisoned for trying to join IS. Georgia’s Pankisi Gorge, which has strong ethnic and cultural links with Chechnya which it borders, has become an important recruiting ground for IS.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 271, published on March 11 2016)

Georgian wine exports increase

MARCH 7 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Imports of Georgian wine to Russia more than doubled in the first two months of the years compared to the same period in 2015, Georgia’s national wine agency reported. Wine is both an important export for Georgia and also an important cultural identifier. Russia recently lifted a ban on the import of Georgian wine.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 271, published on March 11 2016)

Economic downturn threatens to shut Georgian factories

MARCH 11 2016, RUSTAVI, Georgia (The Conway Bulletin) — The growing economic malaise is starting to bite in Georgia. Just ask 51-year-old Manana who works at the Azot chemical plant in Rustavi, an industrial town around 25km from Tbilisi.

The factory, which employs 2,000 people, is faced with closure within a month unless it can secure a reduction in the price it pays for gas.

“I don’t know what I would do, if they really close for good,” she said. Her face wrinkled, she sighed and then turned towards the entrance of the Soviet-built factory. Today she would work but she wasn’t sure what the future held.

This is a story playing out across Georgia, where industrial unrest is growing as the lari currency drops in value and inflation starts to rise. Like the rest of the region, vital remittances from abroad, mainly Russia, have fallen and frustration is growing with the government.

Factories and mines are reporting worker unrest and bosses are warning of closures and redundancies.

Revaz Karanadze is an activist with the Tbilisi Solidarity Network, a grassroots organisation supporting regional labour protests. She said falling global oil prices had undermined the economy.

“The economic situation in the region, and especially oil-producing neighbour Azerbaijan, hits the factory and mining,” she said.

The Azot chemical plant produces fertilisers, as well as ammonia, sodium cyanide, nitric acid and liquid oxygen. It uses more than 300m cubic meters of gas per year, the highest consumption in Georgia. Two-thirds of its costs are gas.

The problem is that it negotiated an 8 year price deal for gas in 2011 when oil prices, which drive gas prices, were around $115/barrel. They are now around a third of that price.

Georgian ministers and SOCAR, the Azerbaijani state-owned company that supplies the gas, have said that a deal is in sight but Manana, the factory worker, was less optimistic.

“They always say it’ll get better, but we are not the only ones struggling. Who knows what tomorrow will bring,” she said.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 271, published on March 11 2016)

FDI into Georgia falls 23%

MARCH 11 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Foreign direct investment (FDI) into Georgia measured $1.35b in 2015, a drop of around 23% from 2014. FDI is an important part of Georgia’s economy. It is, generally, volatile but the sharp fall may be indicative of an overall slump in economic conditions in the region.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 271, published on March 11 2016)